Corona44
Senior Heliman
Location: Sydney,NSW Australia
| Prior to purchasing my Hurricane 550 Pro I read reports of issues relating to some of the control system links failing due to issues with the balls and screws.
Pre-warned I was prepared to look at and if necessary replace or modify some stocks parts and this I did prior to my first test flight.
There are two or three items that are of serious concern to anybody who has purchased one of these heli's that I would like to bring to to your attention.
Gaul have chosen to use small self tapping screws to hold the control linkage balls. These are rather dangerious in my opinion because they all tend to be slightly on the short side with only about 2 usable threads protruding out of the ball and because they are self tappers they are also tapered towards a blunt point further reducing the amount of available thread to grip the plastic parts they are screwed into.
In comparision, the same size ball links on my Align Trex 450 use a slightly longer proper metal thread screw, while slightly harder to "start" into platic they penetrate further and can be tightened far tighter without fear of stripping the plastic hole.
Because of reports that the Elevator control horn failures I ordered the upgraded metal part and that arrived a couple of days ago. Again I found this was fitted with a longer version of one of these cheap self tapping screws and again the screw only protrudes by about 3mm into the plastic.
I fitted the new metal horn and found that when attempting to tighten the retaining screw the tread was already stripped and thus not really holding, Again I found a spare Trex long metal threaded socket head screw that is normally used to hold the Trex airframe together a good replacement as its about another 3mmm longer and fully threaded to the end. This tighened up nicely.
Another disturbing item that others have commented on is that most of the stock Gaul control rod ends are only on by about 3 threads and as such you risk having a link rod pull apart in flight, especially if your a serious stick banger.
I found that Raptor 30 rod ends are the same ball size but with a longer threaded barrel. I have replaced one of the Gaul ends on each linkage with a Raptor end, this allows more threads to be wound into the ends.
Please see the attached photo showing each of these items and comparison with the replacement parts I fitted.
Flying, crashing & having a ball. |
mine just fell out the other day lol wasn't even flying its changed now!
